


Miracle

by Fledhyris



Series: Introspectives [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Season/Series 04, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29332971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fledhyris/pseuds/Fledhyris
Summary: Dean has been suffering in silence ever since he got out of Hell. Sam knows he won't talk, so he comes up with another solution to help his brother through it. At first, Dean is sceptical, but he makes the effort: for Sam.
Series: Introspectives [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1444000
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the flash prompt: "Miracle" from thanks_tacos. I'll be putting up a series of these little writing challenges, they are fun to do and I really like the results. The idea is to be spontaneous and creative, and not over-think or edit - just see where your mind takes you on a one-word writing prompt! (Confession: I did beta this quite ruthlessly for punctuation, my run-on sentences are eyebrow raising.)

Dean hunches over the blank piece of paper and frowns. He fidgets, and breathes out through his nose in quiet little huffs of exasperation, and he taps his pen on the little desk until someone to his right coughs, meaningfully - that ‘uh-huh-UGH’ sound that says ‘shut up will you, people are tryin’ to concentrate!’ So he does, because he promised, even though he’s convinced this is all a colossal waste of time.

I mean, seriously. “Write about a personal miracle.” _That’s_ their exercise? C’mon. Bunch o’ screw-ups and misfits and borderline nutcases that they all are here, what kind of miracles are any of them likely to have witnessed in their luckless, sorry lives? It’s a low blow, it’s like laying out the whole pathetic hopelessness of their existence bare before them. Might as well laugh in their faces and say ‘what’s the point of believing in miracles? None has ever happened to _you.’_

It’ll be a freaking miracle if he manages to get anything down on this piece of paper, that’s for sure.

He chews on the cap of his pen, jammed onto the end, as he toys with the idea of deliberately misinterpreting the question, sassing it up. ‘Miracle-Gro!’ for all your bedroom needs, just take one blue pill and you’ll be pounding the mattress all night long. Pounding nails into your own coffin… woah, morbid turn of the imagination there, and he reins back firmly before his mind can slip down that well-worn track. Might be why he’s here, but doesn’t mean he has to go _thinking_ about it. Leave that masochistic shit to his sleeping brain, thank you very much. 

Anyway, so much for the sex-drug advert reinterpretation of today’s class task. He knows exactly what that will get him. ‘Are you deflecting, Dean? Evading the question? What are you so afraid of?’ Good point. What _is_ he afraid of? He’s Dean Winchester, he hunts monsters and saves people on a weekly basis from things that would make the average special forces soldier piss his pants and pass out in terror. He’s been to literal Hell, hence the nightmares, and it’s not that they scare him either; he just hates the constant reminder of what he is, what he’s like; deep down in the pitch dark recesses of his soul.

Now that, if he could get away with writing about it; if there was the slightest chance of being believed; that could qualify as a miracle, right there. Cas coming to save him, dragging his sorry, undeserving ass out of the pit as though he’s anything special, any better than the tortured millions of screaming, aching souls still trapped down there, dissolving into blackness one slipped up good intention at a time.

He knows most people would class that as a miracle, but he knows better. It took too much hard work, too much bloodshed, too much sacrifice. Cas lost half his battalion to that desperate raid, and Dean knows how much he owes him, a debt he can never repay; not that the angel is asking him to; and he just can’t believe that the prize balances the cost. Just all feels a long way short of fucking _miraculous,_ if you ask him. More like some bitter kind of cosmic joke, only he’s not quite sure who’s the target here, whether it’s himself or Castiel. Maybe the joke’s on both of them. So yeah, two reasons not to put that down for his answer.

He glances at the clock, leans back and pops his spine while he takes a quick look around at the others, busy scratching away on their own pieces of paper as though the answer to all their prayers lies in this: bleeding out their troubles and their insecurities in navy ink, summoning salvation with painful honesty and TMI.

It’s not him, this oversharing with total strangers, he can’t even talk about this stuff to Sam; but he has started to concede that his brother might have a point, that there’s only so much he can lock away before it starts to poison him from the inside out. Only so many times Sam has to be woken up by Dean’s moaning and thrashing in his sleep, before enough is enough and he can’t just sit idly by and watch him spiral down into a fit of depression as deep as Alastair’s dungeon.

So that’s why he’s here, in a therapy group of all places. Not under cover, not on a case, except his own; but honest to God trying to help himself for a change, because Sam has had enough, and he thinks this might help - and whatever he personally believes, Dean promised him he’d try.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what his life boils down to, one way or another: trying for Sammy. Trying to be brave and strong and righteous and all the things Dean feels he’s faking, and _that’s_ what scares him, right there. The thought that one of these days, Sam will see through this paper-thin facade Dean has plastered over himself all his life, and realise that the big brother he’d always looked up to is a sham, a faker and a disappointment and a burden. That he’s sunk so low, Sam is just dragging around dead weight, and Cas should have just left him to rot down there so as not to pull his brother down too.

That’s something of a minor miracle in itself, that they’ve come so far and Dean has screwed up so much, and still Sam doesn’t seem to have noticed. Not like him, really, to be so blind; he’s usually so observant and astute behind that gentle giant demeanour. But maybe he has noticed, after all. Maybe he’s known all along, even before Hell, and so nothing has changed, there’s been no revelatory ripping-off of the scales over his eyes. Maybe he’s been carrying Dean all this time, not just coming along for the ride - looking for Dad and hunting for the demon and then searching pointlessly for a way to get Dean out of his deal, but actually shouldering the burden that is his messed up older brother, because…

Because maybe, no probably; there’s no point in denying it, that would just be to sell Sam short; the plain fact of it is, Sam cares for Dean as much as Dean does him. And as much as the sleepless nights might be annoying him, as much as he might worry that Dean’s losing his edge and could get them both killed, the point of sending him here, is that Sam is concerned about him. He’s looking out for Dean, he wants to help him get better. He _loves_ him.

Dean isn’t sure what he’s done to deserve so much consideration, when he’s dragged Sam practically kicking and screaming from the life he’d chosen for himself, on a downward roller coaster ride into chaos and misery and death, but there it is. Right there. That’s his miracle.

Slowly, reverently, he presses the pen to the paper and shakily forms just four words, before the buzzer on the desk shatters the quiet of the room and the therapist claps her hands and calls out cheerfully, “Okay group, time’s up, pens down now please”. 

Dean takes off the squashed and mangled cap of the pen and slots it back over the nib, then aligns it carefully alongside the top edge of the paper. Only four words, but they are the full truth and heart of the matter; there is nothing else that needs to be written. The exercise is done, and if his answer lacks context for anyone else, for Dean it contains all the meaning his life has ever required, and he sits back and folds his arms, at peace.

“My little brother Sammy.”


End file.
